Curbing homelessness through housing first
San Francisco is one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and home to 83 billionaires. It’s a failure of leadership to let 2,300 SFUSD students go homeless and to not dedicate more resources and coordination to getting people housed. San Francisco’s homelessness can be best understood when compared to a pipeline. Too many people are falling into a bottle-necked pipeline and not getting out. We need to prevent people from entering homelessness, expand the capacity of our transitory shelter and housing infrastructure to absorb those who do, and exit people from the system into permanent housing as soon as possible. We also need to tackle this issue from a regional and state-wide perspective, as San Francisco can’t do it alone.
Houston curbed their homelessness by 63% by following a Housing First model. The “housing first” model is supported by decades of research. It entails moving the most vulnerable people straight from the streets into apartments, without stipulations. In San Francisco, it takes about six months for someone to be placed into housing after filing the necessary paperwork. In Houston, it takes just 32 days, thanks to the years-long collaboration among more than a hundred organizations and community leaders. In a city with thousands of vacant commercial and residential spaces, this isn’t just a matter of resources, it’s a matter of political will.
As Supervisor, here’s what I will support to curb homelessness:
Expanding our infrastructure for mental health and substance use treatment.
This includes building out our behavioral health facilities to provide enough beds for dual-diagnosis patients and ensuring housing post-treatment, collaborating with the state and federal governments to secure resources, and staffing up our healthcare system to meet the overwhelming demand for care. Read my full Overdose and Mental Health Platform here.
Bring together the 100+ organizations and agencies addressing homelessness under one unified plan of action
Following Houston’s example, we need to economize our resources by unifying the dozens of community organizations and city agencies tackling homelessness to see where efforts are being duplicated, where gaps exist, and where we can collaborate and shift resources to improve efficiencies. Together, we can provide transparency, accountability, and results for every dollar of taxpayer money and charitable contributions made to curbing homelessness in San Francisco.
End SFUSD student homelessness in partnership with SFUSD
2,300 SFUSD students are homeless. This is completely unacceptable in a city with a $250 billion GDP. Too many students are coming to school underfed, underslept, and dysregulated because they do not have housing stability. The amazing staff at Buena Vista Horace Mann in the Mission have done the deep trailblazing work of setting up a nighttime shelter at their school, and are trying to expand to meet the demand of families in the community. Together, we should be able to dedicate the whole of the government to ending student homelessness. By working with these staff members and other school site personnel around SFUSD, we can.
Unlock hundreds of vacant units of supportive housing
730 units (7.8%) of supportive housing are sitting vacant across 150 different sites in the city. Many are in disrepair, some are awaiting tenants to complete paperwork, and some have staffing issues. We need to get people out of the streets and into these units as soon as possible.
Fix the broken Coordinated Entry system
"Coordinated Entry” is an algorithmic program the city uses to put people into a citywide database, give them a score, and find them a housing placement. It is a system that is almost impossible for both homeless people and providers to navigate, and needs serious and expeditious reform.
Fully Utilize Our Business Tax Revenue for Intended Uses
Funding for hundreds of housing subsidies, and treatment slots are just sitting in city coffers unused in the Our City Our Home and Prop I funds. Much of that funding is meant to go to unhoused families and youth and the city has been far too slow to put it to use. We need to hold the city accountable and fully utilize those funds, while investing general fund dollars in data driven solutions.
Dignified Shelter and SRO Capacity, Privacy, and Safety.
Often, people sleeping on the streets are forced to remain on the streets because of the many rules, curfews, and safety concerns shelters present. Many SROs around the city are also dilapidated and in desperate need of capital improvements, like elevator repairs. Some shelters do not allow people with pets, partners, mental health conditions or people using drugs to enter, and some have strict rules about possessions and curfews. We need to work with existing shelter and SRO operators to improve current options so that people are attracted to the options that already exist, while expanding capacity.
Emergency Cash Assistance
California researchers gave 69 homeless people in San Francisco and L.A. $750 a month for six months. The result was a drop in unsheltered homelessness from 30% to 12%. Advocates say that because there’s such a wide range of reasons why people end up homeless, direct cash can go a long way in helping them meet their specific needs and get past the hurdles keeping them from getting back on their feet.
Halt displacement through strong renter protections
Communities that spend an average of more than 32 percent of their incomes for rent have higher rates of homelessness. As a renter who has struggled with housing stability, I support rent control measures to protect tenants from drastic rent increases. I also support full implementation of universal right to counsel for anyone facing eviction coupled with rental assistance, to keep San Franciscans housed.
Bring thousands of empty apartments online through the vacancy tax
I supported Prop M (2020) to bring 5,000 apartment units online through a vacancy tax. I will support the City Attorney’s office to ensure that the City defends the vacancy tax in court against the real estate industry groups who want to continue to exploit empty units as speculative investments.
Build & acquire more buildings for thousands of new units of green social housing
Right now, the market, left alone to its own devices, will build mostly for higher-income earners. While we need housing of all levels, if we really want to curb homelessness, we need social housing. The best example of this is seen in Vienna, where private developers who collaborate with the city government to build affordable housing must allow the city to rent half of the new apartments to lower-income residents; the developer generally leases the remaining units to moderate-income residents. Rents are regulated by the city government so that none of the residents pay any more than 20 to 25 percent of their household income for housing. We authorized 10,000 units of municipal housing in 2020 (Prop K), and now we need to find the financing to make it happen.
Advocate for a unified multi-level government plan of action
Engage with regional, state, and federal policymakers to advocate for vertically and horizontally-integrated approaches to homelessness, including funding allocations to ensure that every level of government is pulling their weight under a coordinated plan of action.
Data-Driven Solutions
Implement data-driven approaches to identify trends, assess program effectiveness, and allocate resources more efficiently. Establish clear metrics to evaluate the success of homelessness prevention and intervention programs, ensuring accountability and continuous improvement.
Job Training and Placement
Collaborate with local businesses and vocational training programs to provide homeless individuals with skills training and job placement services. Government, non-profit and the private sector struggle with workforce shortages, and meanwhile thousands of San Franciscans are out of work. As we build up our small businesses as well as our social safety net to address issues of addiction, homelessness and poverty we need to also ensure those traditionally left out of the job market are prepared to put their skills to work in vacant private sector, city and non-profit job markets.
Reimagine the Street Response to Homelessness - Proyecto Dignidad SF
The city is currently spending millions of dollars on an uncoordinated flash-in-the-pan street response to homelessness that simply pushes our unhoused neighbors from block to block. We need a geographically focused “by name” approach where a planned pathway off the street is developed in collaboration with each unhoused person in District 9, and follow up occurs until an appropriate placement is secured.